EMV will become a reality here in the US too. The banks want it to reduce fraud and it makes sense. Consumer will want it too.

Recently my cousins from Ireland were shocked when our waiter took our cards and walked away from the table when we were at a restaurant in Orlando. My uncle practically jumped out of his seat when the waiter started to walk away. With EMV in Ireland, the waiter would bring an EMV reader to the table so the card would never be "out of sight" of the customer and the pin could be entered into the reader.

I imagine that EMV adoption will be voluntary at first and you will see the larger chain stores adopt the technology. Then, banks will say that they will no longer cover fraud-losses from merchants that don't use EMV. The merchants would be on the hook if a card number was stolen as a result of their reluctance to adopt EMV.

There are so many moving parts involved with EMV implementation, from merchants having EMV-enabled terminals to financial institutions issuing millions of new cards, it seems difficult for it to become the new standard in the U.S. in the next couple of years, but we'll see.